This is where it all started, and it's still great after all these years.
The SimCity series has always been one of those games in the category of "easy to learn, sadistically hard to master". The general premise of the game is very simple. You zone lands as residential, commercial, or industrial, then give them electric power and supportive infrastructure like police departments and roads, and then watch them grow and flourish.
Or so goes the theory. The reality is that the SimCitizens are a very touchy bunch. You won't get the upper class moving into your city unless you do everything just so - they want to be away from pollution, to be close enough to employment, and to have enough exposure to pleasantries in life like proximity to water and parks. But that's not all - there's also a finite space in which you can build your city, and one of the biggest goals of any player is to get the biggest city possible. These all add up to a huge balancing act that the player must strike, making the city livable enough to attract the masses, but densely populated enough to have a massive population.
As your population increases in the original SimCity, your city's designation will change. You start at a village, then move to town status at 2000 people, city status at 10,000, capital status at 50,000, metropolis at 100,000, and finally megalopolis at 500,000. It sounds simple on paper. Not so in practice. The few, the proud who have achieved megalopolis status deservedly bask in the reverance they receive for having accomplished this task. It is a nearly impossibly difficult task to do, and requires both very little water to be present on the map and for the layout of the city to be absolutely perfect.
But the best part about SimCity is that if the prospect of achieving a megolopolis is frustrating the heck out of you, you don't have to bother with it. There is no direction to SimCity other than the one you make for yourself. You may choose to build a gigantic industrial center and say to heck with the rich and famous. You may build a small village where everyone is happy and well, and where size is shunned. It's entirely up to you. The game will not punish you in any way for not stretching the population to the limit.
All in all, SimCity is a superb addition to anyone's Virtual Console collection. It can provide a neverending stream of enjoyment, as endless possibilities await you within.